Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Cycling made easy

Issaquah, WAThursday, July 20, 2006

Bike riding is so much more simplistic when you don’t have to worry about the minor details like weather. It makes it so much easier… You see, in the summer when the weather is good, you’ve got so much more confidence in the day’s productivity. If it’s rainy the chances are that you’ll sit around and dream of a day without rain until the end of the day when you force yourself to endure the tropical/arctic conditions of winter (in Washington you combine the cold of the arctic with the rain of the tropics, aka subtropical). Usually this results in a state of illness… But during the summer everything changes, no more of that complicated rainy stuff, just the simple, sunny days of old. Ride the bike, enjoy the weather and rock the porch chair while the breeze blows through the trees (oh, did I mention that these things called trees reside in Washington?).As great as Washington is, the fishing is far below par. Although there are plenty of fish and enough rivers and lakes that you wonder if there’s one nestled behind each mountain, the fish are hardly worth your time compared with the likes of, apparently, anywhere. Why this is I have no idea, it doesn’t get too cold and it doesn’t get too hot, so why are the trout 6 inches long (they’re not abnormally wide like a certain mammal in Washington either…)? Maybe they don’t like rain…